My Adventures with Superman’s Jack Quaid On Bringing Superman to Life and Contrast to The Boys

My Adventures with Superman has soared since its premiere on Adult Swim, introducing fans to a new take on a DC icon that feels fresh and yet undoubtedly classic as well. The series follows Clark and Jimmy as they become interns at the Daily Planet, and that brings them into Lois Lane’s orbit, kicking off the trio’s adventures from there. Bringing Superman to life is the talented Jack Quaid, and as you might expect, playing Superman is a bit of a surreal thing. That’s especially true when you’re also used to being surrounded by the gritty and outlandish world of The Boys. ComicBook had the chance to speak to Quaid about bringing such an iconic character to life, as well as how it compares and contrasts to something like The Boys.

Quaid has been a Superman fan for quite some time, going back to becoming Super Jake when he was a child. Now he gets bring his own voice and personality to the character, and it’s something he couldn’t be more excited about.”Absolutely. I grew up as a huge nerd. When I was a kid, I’ll have to find a photo of this and post it, but I dressed up as my own version of Superman when I was a kid. His name was Super Jake. And I basically, I took a white T-shirt and I drew on it with Sharpie. And it was just like the Superman triangle, I just put a J in the middle. And I think I had a Batman cape. It was a weird hodgepodge of things.”

“But I loved Superman as a kid, and I think I got the email saying that, ‘Do you want to audition to play Superman?’ And I think my first reaction was like, ‘Oh yeah, sure, I’ll be Superman.’ I just never thought it would happen in a million years. But you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, so I put together a tape and sent it in,” Quaid said.

At one point Quaid assumed he didn’t get the role, but thankfully that wasn’t the case. “A couple weeks went by, which usually means, eh, you might not have gotten it. But then I got it and I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it. It’s still weird for me to say, ‘I am Superman,’ out loud. It doesn’t feel real coming out of my mouth. But I got to check out the show last night. I finally got some screeners for it. And I just love it so much. I love how genuine it is, and I love how it’s about not only Clark/Superman, but Lois and Jimmy too, and how integral they are. So it’s just been such a joy.“

“And also coming from a show like The Boys, which can be so dark and really taking the… I never know if I can swear in these, but taking the cheese out of superheroes. And then to go from that to playing a character who is just so genuine and just wants to do the right thing, it’s such a breath of fresh air. It’s very, very cool. And I consider it a huge honor to play this character. It’s been amazing,” Quaid said.

Quaid’s just now getting used to his voice being the voice of Superman, and while there are many highlights for him in the series, the dynamic between Clark and Lois is especially rewarding. “It hit me last night, to be honest. I saw bits and pieces of it doing the ADR, where I see just the context around the moment. But, no, it hit me last night. It hit me hard. I still can’t believe it, but last night made it slightly more real. And I love the dynamic that Clark has with Jimmy and Lois. And I found myself getting very emotional randomly for the Clark and Lois scenes. I just think they’re so sweet together. And obviously, it’s a couple that we’ve seen time immemorial get together. But the way that the team behind the show orchestrated those scenes I just thought was so beautiful. So, again, I still don’t quite believe it, but I believe it slightly more and it’s wonderful.”

New episodes of My Adventures with Superman premiere every Friday on Adult Swim, and are then available immediately after their premiere on Max.

What have you thought of My Adventures with Superman so far? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things DC and TV with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!